Longhorn Deluxe Slot
One of the more popular themes in slot machines today is that of the Old West. These games explore the life of cowboys and cattle ranchers in many different ways, from cartoonish and comical interpretations to plenty of more realistic ones. The American West is a land of interesting and diverse wildlife, which has made this a fertile ground for finding all kinds of symbols to use on machines.
Aristocrat has returned to this well many times, with one recent example being the Longhorn Deluxe video slot. This game doesn’t deal with cowboys, bandits, and Native Americans, but rather with ranchers and the cattle that they deal with to this very day. But while the theme might be a bit understated and realistic, make no mistake: this is a machine that can reward you with some incredible prizes if you manage to hit it big in the free spins feature.
Cattle Call
Longhorn Deluxe by Aristocrat is a machine with five reels that uses an expanded 4x5 layout. This is also part of the Reel Power series; specifically, given the expanded reels, this is an “Xtra Reel Power” title. That means that you don’t have to worry about paylines, as you’ll instead have the chance to win with any left to right combination across the screen. In total, this provides 1,024 ways to win each time you play.
The basic object of the game is simple: the player wants to match symbols from left to right across the reels in order to earn prizes. If you’ve played other games by Aristocrat, you’re sure to know the drill by now: the lowest value wins come from matching card ranks, starting from nines and tens all the way up through kings and aces. High-paying symbols include a number of thematic ideas, ranging from wildcats and eagles to boots and a steer standing in front of the Texan flag, which offers some of the biggest prizes on this machine.
Riding with the Rangers
The key to scoring big on the Longhorn Deluxe video slot is the free spins bonus game. This round is triggered whenever you hit three or more scatter symbols – the Ranger badges – anywhere on the reels. When this occurs, you can choose from three different versions of this special feature, each of which offers a different number of games and multipliers.
These options don’t have quite the impact on your volatility as in some free spins features, but there are still decisions to be made. You can take 15, 12, or nine free spins. In each case, the wild symbols will become multipliers as well. In all three games, these wilds could just have a 2x multiplier, but there’s also a possibility of a larger reward that ranges from 3x (in the 15 spin version) up to 5x (if you take just nine spins). Players also have the possibility of retriggering the bonus to earn more spins if they hit two or more scatters at any time, extending the feature indefinitely.
Herding Cattle
While this isn’t a machine that features a whole lot of gameplay variety, we still think that many gamblers will want to play Longhorn Deluxe. The free spins round alone has the potential to win players hundreds of dollars, even when the machine is played in penny slots mode, and we’re always fans of the 1,024 ways to win system. The theme may be well-worn, and there may not be a lot of unique features to distinguish this machine from other casino slot machines, but this is still a solid addition to the Aristocrat collection.
